NT 5.0 public beta due next week

Here's the question: Will Novell and Netscape be in the line of fire? Or will they have out maneuvered Microsoft and lived to fight another day?

Microsoft Corp. will release the NT 5.0 beta next week at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, a company spokeswoman said. But the company would not provide an exact release date. The conference, held in San Diego, runs Monday through Friday. Several developers said they expect the release Tuesday.

The final version is scheduled for release next summer. The long testing time will allow corporate customers to test the software for bugs.

For those people not intimately involved with the computer industry, the hoopla over NT seems a far distant second in importance behind what's happening with Microsoft's Windows 98, the next version of the ubiquitous operating system. But to Microsoft, NT is no less important, because the company that controls corporate networks controls the industry.

"NT is core to Microsoft's strategy," said Harry Fenik, vice president at Zona Research Inc. "This is the next step in penetrating the enterprise and staking their claim to ownership of the enterprise server environment."

Earlier versions of NT have already claimed victims. Last week, Artisoft, the maker of networking software for small- and medium-sized businesses, pushed out its CEO and all but raised the white flag, declaring the company has unsuccessfully competed against NT and Windows.

And many of the travails of networking giant Novell, which just a few years ago owned 80 percent of the networking software market, have come from NT. Now Novell's share has slipped to 50 percent, while Microsoft has garnered 25 percent and is rising, according to market researcher International Data Corp.

"Novell's future is completely up for grabs